Targeted Issues Grant Program Update -- The PAR Project: Online Education, Social Media Initiatives and Real Time Performance Reports

The Performance Adherence Reports (PAR) Project aims to improve the prehospital care of pediatric patients in North Carolina in the critical areas of trauma, sepsis, and respiratory distress. Utilizing established performance measures, the PAR Project provides EMS personnel with real-time feedback about their performance in the field and educational resources to support their growth.

PARs are straightforward, online reports that allow EMS providers to examine how well they meet State-wide, protocol-driven performance measures. They summarize the individual provider’s performance and allow for quick and easy comparison between themselves, their EMS System, and the state. Providers can choose to view their performance for either pediatric or adult patients, and can search their history to view performance over time. Additionally, providers can access their PARs on any internet-capable device at any time.

Agency-wide PARs are also available for EMS System administrators to evaluate the performance of both their System and by certification level of their providers. This view allows administrators to compare their System performance to that of other similar Systems or the State as a whole.

To address educate EMS administrators and providers about the uses and importance of performance measures and address deficiencies that personnel might become aware of via the use of PARs, our team has developed four online educational courses. These courses have been rigorously reviewed by EMS experts in each area and certified for Statewide CEU credit. Additionally, through partnerships with pediatric specialists at the Medical College of Wisconsin and the University of California Davis, we are producing a podcast series on these pediatric prehospital topics that can further support providers’ education. To promote the use of PARs and educational resources among providers and administrators, a social media campaign has been launched on sites frequented by users in the average EMS age range: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. These pages are constantly updated with information, news, and events related to the project and pediatric prehospital care. Additionally, we have collaborated with the National Registry of EMTs to disseminate a nation-wide survey to collect information about EMS providers’ use of social media.

Targeting seven NC EMS Systems (four rural, three urban), the research team believes this project will be of significant importance on both the local and national level. While researchers and policy makers have disseminated clinical practice guidelines, we have little understanding of methods to successfully implement these guidelines. EMS medicine is in the early stages of identifying how to utilize performance measures and research in this area is in its infancy. Understanding how to deploy and teach providers to integrate standardized performance measures into their practice of prehospital pediatric care may greatly improve the quality of care patients receive through EMS. By implementing a multi-faceted educational and performance improvement campaign in prehospital pediatric care, we hope to explore the benefits of such a delivery mechanism and foster replicability across NC and the nation.

To help support the dissemination of this project, “like” and “follow” us on Facebook (@UNCPAR), Twitter (@UNC_PAR), Instagram (@UNCPAR), and LinkedIn (UNC PAR).